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Mystery Affliction: Vanadzor residents suffer illness of unknown origin
By Naira Bulghadaryan
ArmeniaNow Vanadzor reporter
Published: 29 October, 2008
A virus afflicting residents of Vanadzor since mid-October has become a puzzle for epidemiologists.
Within a few days, about 340 people sought treatment with signs of intestinal infection, the majority of them 14 or younger.
Specialists in Vanadzor along with their colleagues arriving from Yerevan have difficulties in identifying the reason for the intestinal infection trying to determine whether it comes from water or food consumption.
?It is not an epidemic, but the number of patients doubled in just several days,? says the senior sanitary specialist of Lori province doctor Karine Mirzoyan. Having examined the water and the food products the patients have mentioned to have used ? eggs, poultry, and Canadian smoked sausages, the specialists still find it difficult to tell the residents of the town the origins and the reasons for the infection.
Symptoms include fever and abdominal pain.
The 60-bed hospital for infectious diseases in Vanadzor has been overloaded. Doctors say the health condition of the patients stabilizes in several days ? the temperature drops, and the abdominal pains relieve. No deaths have resulted.
Three-year old Karen Aghajanyan was brought to the hospital with fever. ?The day before he got worse he had eaten an egg, no other dangerous products for that day,? says Karen?s grandmother. The boy?s 40 degree temperature, vomiting and abdominal pains were followed by the deterioration of his five-year old sister?s health. Unlike the brother, Nona had not used any of the mentioned products.
Narine Ladoyan?s two daughters, ages 5 and 7, fell ill with the symptoms, though they had not eaten the same food prior to becoming sick.
Liana Torosyan, senior specialist of the State Hygiene and Anti-Epidemic Agency of the Ministry of Healthcare taken part in the 3-day laboratory examination of water and food products.
Torosyan said the symptoms are typical to an infectious enteric disease, but the virus that has caused it is still to be found.
She says dysentery, salmonella and a number of other diseases have been excluded so far.
News circulating in the town that dead horse was found in one of the water canals causing contamination of the water, were refuted by Lori water and sewage officials.
According to the preliminary conclusion of the senior sanitary specialist of Vanadzor, water could not be the reason, as the 5 water pipelines in the town are not anyhow networked, while the patients come from all the districts.
The specialists? suspicions over the Canadian sausage and eggs are not convincing either taken into account the eggs and sausages are not produced in Vanadzor and are sold all over the republic.
According to the prosecutor?s office of the Lori province, no deaths caused by the infection have been registered. As of October 28, about 100 people were discharged from hospital in satisfactory health condition.
A criminal case under part 1 of Article 277 of Armenia?s Criminal Code (breaking sanitary-epidemiological rules) has been instituted upon the instruction of the republic?s prosecutor-general.
Mystery Affliction: Vanadzor residents suffer illness of unknown origin
By Naira Bulghadaryan
ArmeniaNow Vanadzor reporter
Published: 29 October, 2008
A virus afflicting residents of Vanadzor since mid-October has become a puzzle for epidemiologists.
Within a few days, about 340 people sought treatment with signs of intestinal infection, the majority of them 14 or younger.
Specialists in Vanadzor along with their colleagues arriving from Yerevan have difficulties in identifying the reason for the intestinal infection trying to determine whether it comes from water or food consumption.
?It is not an epidemic, but the number of patients doubled in just several days,? says the senior sanitary specialist of Lori province doctor Karine Mirzoyan. Having examined the water and the food products the patients have mentioned to have used ? eggs, poultry, and Canadian smoked sausages, the specialists still find it difficult to tell the residents of the town the origins and the reasons for the infection.
Symptoms include fever and abdominal pain.
The 60-bed hospital for infectious diseases in Vanadzor has been overloaded. Doctors say the health condition of the patients stabilizes in several days ? the temperature drops, and the abdominal pains relieve. No deaths have resulted.
Three-year old Karen Aghajanyan was brought to the hospital with fever. ?The day before he got worse he had eaten an egg, no other dangerous products for that day,? says Karen?s grandmother. The boy?s 40 degree temperature, vomiting and abdominal pains were followed by the deterioration of his five-year old sister?s health. Unlike the brother, Nona had not used any of the mentioned products.
Narine Ladoyan?s two daughters, ages 5 and 7, fell ill with the symptoms, though they had not eaten the same food prior to becoming sick.
Liana Torosyan, senior specialist of the State Hygiene and Anti-Epidemic Agency of the Ministry of Healthcare taken part in the 3-day laboratory examination of water and food products.
Torosyan said the symptoms are typical to an infectious enteric disease, but the virus that has caused it is still to be found.
She says dysentery, salmonella and a number of other diseases have been excluded so far.
News circulating in the town that dead horse was found in one of the water canals causing contamination of the water, were refuted by Lori water and sewage officials.
According to the preliminary conclusion of the senior sanitary specialist of Vanadzor, water could not be the reason, as the 5 water pipelines in the town are not anyhow networked, while the patients come from all the districts.
The specialists? suspicions over the Canadian sausage and eggs are not convincing either taken into account the eggs and sausages are not produced in Vanadzor and are sold all over the republic.
According to the prosecutor?s office of the Lori province, no deaths caused by the infection have been registered. As of October 28, about 100 people were discharged from hospital in satisfactory health condition.
A criminal case under part 1 of Article 277 of Armenia?s Criminal Code (breaking sanitary-epidemiological rules) has been instituted upon the instruction of the republic?s prosecutor-general.